Review: Wave Alchemy Drum Tools 01

Drum Tools 01 by Wave Alchemy offers over 1950 exquisitely produced electronic drum samples. All sounds in the collection have been built from the ground up using a jawdropping array of analogue circuitry and exclusive highend outboard gear.

Great care has been taken to capture the tone / vibe and warmth of the equipment used and all sample editing and file naming has been done by hand for maximum precision.

The drum samples in Drum Tools 01 have been created by the creative layering and processing of drum machines, exotic synthesizers / modulars, field recordings and the recording of live drum and percussive instruments.

Ah… just what I need: More creatively layered and processed drum machine, exotic sound sources and field recordings.

So why Drum Tools 01? The beauty of sample libraries like the ones I just mentioned is that they feature sampled material from a unique combination of analog sound sources processed with high end outboard gear, so Drum Tools still sounds “different” from everything else I already have.

So what does all this gear sound like? Check some high quality audio demos below to get an idea.

With close to 2,000 samples it is no luxury to have things well ordered. Wave Alchemy shows attention to detail by creating a clear folder structure; main folders like claps, kicks, snare drums, etc., and subfolders within most main folders to help you find exactly those samples you are looking for. Granted there are some folders containing samples with _001, _002 etc. file naming, most samples have very descriptive names, e.g. dt01_layeredsnare_heavenslam.wav, or dt01_clap_odysseyclap.wav.

Besides claps, hihats/cymbals, kicks, snares, and percussion samples, a bunch of perhaps not so obvious sounds are included in this library as well:

Drum Tools, includes almost 60 sub enhancers and transient snaps/clicks.

So what do I think?

The Drum Tools 01 library is subtitled “Minimal Techno & Tech House”, but of course these drum samples are well suitable for any electronic music genre. The sample quality is of the same high standard I have come to expect from Wave Alchemy: superbly recorded, processed and edited.

Almost 2,000 unique samples for a little under $60 USD… If you do not yet have a comprehensive sample library for electronic drum sounds, Drum Tools 01 would certainly be a great choice.

For those like me, who already have more sounds than they will ever use, Drum Tools 01 still offers some interesting material. The glitch, sound fx, and chords and stabs folders include many unique and usable samples that I found very inspiring.

Wave Alchemy is offering a very generous Drum Tools Teaser pack, featuring 150 samples from the full release. So go check it out and see how you like this library. I think it’s the bee’s knees!

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Hey man, really great and informative review of the Drum tools 01 sample pack. I really love attention to detail of the review.
Nice work.
b

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8 years ago

SoundsAndGear

Nice one, I haven’t had a chance to review this one yet, good stuff, they always deliver.

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8 years ago

J Mc

Excellent pack. Possibly the best drum sounds I’ve ever heard.. undoubtably due to the equipment that it was recorded on. They just sound proper & ready to go out of the .zip! Bought them after getting the free drum tools pack. It really does not dissapoint. I was in 2 minds for a while whether to get it or not.. but its genuinely well worth the money. An essential purchase that I’ll use for a very long time to come. Of course theres genre specific stuff in it.. but the stock sounds are made really really well so its invaluable.… Read more »

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8 years ago

gareth

Bought the full pack about 5mins after downloading the free/demo samples as I was so impressed with the qualilty of the sounds. It is awesome.

I really like the kicks on it, they are amazing!

Only thing I can say bad about it is there aren’t enough hi-hat samples on there imo.